Hey guys! I’ve been going through the forums and stuff, but wanted to ask more recently, how you charge for your sugar work. Right now, I’m still revisiting the way I charge, and I guess I still go into sticker shock with myself sometimes and wonder if it sounds right.
Right now, I’m working on a belated Mother’s Day cake for my portfolio, and it will have 3 medium-large modeling chocolate (my medium of choice) roses on it. Looking at my chart, I’ve priced medium sized sculptures that are fairly simple for $10, but then thinking about $30 for 3 roses seems way too pricey to me, haha. Maybe $6-$7 sounds a little more reasonable.
So how do you guys price custom sugar work? I’m not planning to set prices and copy someone else, but I am curious how you guys do it, and what you charge for it!
me, I would not charge additionally for those roses —
when I say sculpture I mean the cake itself is a sculpture, meaning it does not look like a cake — even if it’s a round sewing basket — I charge more per serving for that —
and I mean, to me, an entire flower spray with leaves and calyxes and buds, large and smaller roses/flowers is included in the base price — i can pop them out in buttercream or modeling choco or gum paste — might charge a tad more for the different medium but not for the individual flowers —
I don’t think I currently charge enough to include them in the base price, but it’s awesome that you do! I did sit down and decided that flowers are more like ‘accents’ rather than sculptures, which I price differently! I’m planning on making them pretty large, so decided they would be a ‘large’ overall accent on the cake, instead of pricing individually.
Guess I kinda just needed a place to think out loud and bounce ideas for!
gotcha —
flowers are expected on a cake — raise your base price — 
I think it might depend upon how elaborate the flowers are. I make some quick, fantasy flowers and I also make some pretty realistic one, which require quite a bit of time.
Well, this cake is my inspiration cake, so I plan on making a large, ruffle flower similar to this one, 3 of them, because I’m doing a 2-tier version, so maybe the picture reference will help! K8Memphis, are these the sorts you would throw in for free?
You can do them pretty quickly, KitchenSix, but you could certainly charge an extra $10 or $15 for three of them.
they would not be free, none of them are free — but the time spent making that flower is included in the base price — and while the flower would probably be made in advance it would still not be an extra charge — there’s a certain amount of decoration time expected and included in the base price of any celebration cake — otherwise both the client and the caker would go nuts nickel and diming themselves — putting flowers, scrolls, normal decor is included — to me, three med large flowers in that design is normal decor on a two tier cake — although that side decor would raise the base price —
now if someone wants to purchase those flowers from you independent of a cake that’s quite a different matter — kaching kaching
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